Ronaldo, 28, was sold to Real Madrid for a world-record £80 million from Manchester United in 2009 and despite being a huge threat to United’s Champions League hopes, Sir Alex Ferguson has heaped praise on the Portuguese.

Ronaldo scored 118 goals in just six years for The Red Devils, but then smashed his personal record by scoring 182 times in 179 games for Spanish giants Real Madrid in just four years.

Sir Alex said:

“Florentino Perez had all the Galacticos at Real Madrid when he was president first time around. He had Figo, Zidane, Roberto Carlos, Raul in that spell. But I don’t think any of those players were as good as Ronaldo.”

He continued:

‘Zidane was a fantastic player, Figo was a fantastic player. But not as good as Ronaldo.”

Ronaldo’s goal tally at Madrid is a great personal record but the Portugese is still a long way off becoming the overall top goalscorer for the club with Raul having netted 323.

Ronaldo scored his 19th hat-trick in Madrid’s 4-1 victory against Sevilla on Saturday night which will have sent out a message to Sir Alex, who will have no doubt been watching his former player,

The Manchester United manager will lead his team to face United’s former star on Wednesday night in what it set to be an epic first leg Champions League night inside the Bernabeu.